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I have emerged from Iowa County's nether regions, what have I missed.
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Bicycle evangelism.
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Your clothes.
Look who's up again...
So I stayed in bed for some hour or so, with attempt to sleep interrupted with bouts of mosquito wrangling.
Finally I decided to get up.
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That would be funny. Anytime Zelda comes up in conversation mother-in-law tries to change the conversation.
Like it or not, MIL, you are going to meet Zelda. Probably this coming weekend.
First of.
I hope Aiymi clears up quickly and cleanly, though if she's been rolling with crazy blood pressure and teetering on a mini-stroke, it might take some time.Secondly.
Haven't really been on this thread for long enough to get the particulars of the relationship between You, Aiymi and Zelda, though I think I have kind of gotten the gist of it.
Vany, if it works for you three, who am I to criticize or condemn your relationship?
Actually I'm kind of sympathetic…
Love isn't a one size fits all.
And, speaking about wild animals, yesterday, I learned that one of the deer near my house is a buck, with at least two points on his rack.
While doing a bit of 'gardening' in the pens (pulling up poisonous plants - the horses usually avoid them, unless they are dried out and mixed in with other grasses), I saw 3 old hare-kittens foraging and got very close to a very young buck (around 30-35ft), who was visiting a local watering hole.
Bleh. Summer's nearly gone, and I'm only now entering vacation mode where I have no motivation to work.
My vacation doesn't start before Thursday ^^'
Though I've been in vacation mode for almost a month now…Then again my "kids" don't really require much more then feed, exercise, grooming and frolicking time in the pens :P
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I have to admit, I'm amused by the wildlife sightings in other areas of the country. Around here if you go for a walk in the early morning just before dawn (morning person, remember?), you have to make enough noise that the deer get out of your way; otherwise you may take a hoof to the head, which is extremely unpleasant.
The other night we were getting home from a movie and had to wait for some urbanized deer to get out of the frigging road so we could park, because they weren't scared of cars any more.
So if you want to see deer, raccoons, skunks, opossums, squirrels, or fat playful crows, our place is pretty awesome. (NobodysWife caught a squirrel playing hide-and-seek with a crow. It was utterly delightful, and pretty much shows how predator-barren we are.)
If you want rattlesnakes coyotes, bobcats, or pumas, I can take you up into the hills where they live, but the only ones I'm likely to find for you are the snakes (too dumb to hide) and the bobcats (can occasionally be spotted darting in the underbrush). I've heard the coyotes, but never seen them. And the only puma I ever saw was in the Sierras at 3:00 am. Not exactly easy to find.
Oh, and bears. Anyone want to chase bears in your bathrobe, I'm your man. We gots lots of black bears up in the Sierras, and they aren't shy.
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I have to admit, I'm amused by the wildlife sightings in other areas of the country. Around here if you go for a walk in the early morning just before dawn (morning person, remember?), you have to make enough noise that the deer get out of your way; otherwise you may take a hoof to the head, which is extremely unpleasant.
The other night we were getting home from a movie and had to wait for some urbanized deer to get out of the frigging road so we could park, because they weren't scared of cars any more.
So if you want to see deer, raccoons, skunks, opossums, squirrels, or fat playful crows, our place is pretty awesome. (NobodysWife caught a squirrel playing hide-and-seek with a crow. It was utterly delightful, and pretty much shows how predator-barren we are.)
If you want rattlesnakes coyotes, bobcats, or pumas, I can take you up into the hills where they live, but the only ones I'm likely to find for you are the snakes (too dumb to hide) and the bobcats (can occasionally be spotted darting in the underbrush). I've heard the coyotes, but never seen them. And the only puma I ever saw was in the Sierras at 3:00 am. Not exactly easy to find.
Oh, and bears. Anyone want to chase bears in your bathrobe, I'm your man. We gots lots of black bears up in the Sierras, and they aren't shy.
the only wildlife we have here are possums. Which are rats to most other people. Maybe the occasional raccoon.
No, wait, we also have pigeons and other flying wildlife.
I saw a garter snake once.
Your clothes.
I don't miss those.
There is a time and place for everything and it's called summer!
Like, you can literally do anything without worrying about hypothermia, frostbite, or getting stabbed by Dustin Diamond... i mean, theres always the chance you'll get stabbed by Dustin Diamond, but it goes waaaaaay down in the summer (as long as you avoid Summerfest, if you go to Summerfest you probably will get stabbed by Dustin Diamond).
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Cheese Vent
Why is it that companies lie about whether or not their cheddar is "sharp"? I mean, if I'm putting it in sandwiches or on Ritz crackers, I prefer a milder cheddar. If I'm serving it with apples (which we do every week on Sunday), I prefer something fairly sharp. If I'm eating it plain, I prefer a very very sharp cheese.
Yet so many cheddar-makers label their cheddar as "sharp" when they're about as sharp as a bowling ball.
Today I opened up my package of Joseph Farm's Sharp Cheddar cheese, cut myself a slice, and had a well-made, ultra-creamy, slice of cheddar that would be overwhelmed by a Triscuit. Honestly one of the mildest cheddars I've ever tasted.
So WHY DID YOU CALL IT SHARP!?!?!?!!?
Because now I have no faith in the Joseph Farms label, and won't buy any more of their cheeses. Seems like an awfully stupid thing to do...
Lying to people that know the difference, not a great idea.
Too many customers don't know the difference anyway.
Also, the ideas of sharpness/spiciness vary wildly between people...
On one of the sessions of Fading Suns, with party strongly dominated by al-Malik members (four out of six or seven?), one of the players decided to show off his cooking skills (we were playing at his place) and prepared some sort of Arab/Middle-Eastern dish. The sauce was served separately in a bowl with a warning "SPICY!".
The group heeded the warning putting a small amounts of the sauce, depending upon their personal preferences. Except for one player who poured a lot of the sauce over her meat... And couldn't eat it after the few initial bites. When asked why she put so much spicy sauce over the dish, she exclaimed that when at her home warn "SPICY" it isn't really that spicy...
Lets say there was some laughter involved.
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Apparently, Tennessee's “Due Care Law” is very broad, making it a lot easier for a cyclist or cyclist's lawyer to claim that the vehicle driver was being negligent in some way and thus pin the blame on them for any collisions that occur between the two.
Compounding this, bike lanes are not common in Tennessee, pretty much nonexistent outside the central portions of larger cities, and where they exist they tend to be narrow, as are most of our streets. As a result, bikes very very often take up whole lanes rather than just a typical bike lane off to the right side of a street.
So yes, it seems the public perception that collisions between bikes and motorized vehicles very strongly favor the cyclist is at least founded in truth. Which goes a long way to explaining why drivers here are immensely skittish around them.
serious question:
If your lanes are THAT narrow, how do you not trade paint/lose your driver's side mirror to oncoming traffic in the opposite lane?
I have gained some weight over the years, but there is no way I am as wide as a car on a bike.
Mostly by basically driving with passenger-side wheels halfway on the edge of the pavement, more or less. Leaning as far away from the other lane as possible.
It's only cost me that side's window twice. Once to a mailbox, once to a garbage or recycling receptacle (I don't remember which, but it was dark-greenish, so I'm guessing the former).
But again, it's less about the width of the roads - primary city roads are fine, as far as width for the cars goes; the above description is more apt for residential areas and rural roads that aren't major thoroughfares or highways - and more about the very small or completely nonexistent bike lanes, and the law's leaning very heavily in a cyclist's favor inspiring people to be immensely skittish around them and resulting in them disrupting traffic.
This is all in addition to my personal beliefs regarding non-motorized vehicles not belonging in motorized traffic.
You know what gets turned into a twisted hunk of metal and aluminum from a slight tap? A pedestrian on the sidewalk and the cyclist they collided with, even at astonishingly low speeds.
Which, as I've stated before, is why you get off and walk the bike until you're past the pedestrians, then resume riding. It's what I did all the time when I was biking as a kid.
I'm gonna let this conversation drop after that... mostly because getting into the same argument over and over is putting me in a surly mood, and neither of us is going to change the other's mind. Respond if you want, I suppose, as I'll surely end up grumbling about it again in the future, but I'm going to try to avoid getting into another debate on the topic.
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Zelda has work and she's coordinating an event for this weekend. Plus her kids. She simply can't help out more than she already has. My mother came over from the other side of the state and is with Aiymi during the day until Aiymi's mom gets here. Whenever that may be.I can understand why MIL would be coming to visit, afterall her daughter was just hospitalized and she'd be one concerned parent.No, not begrudging her that. Just that she can't even be clear and decisive about how and when she's coming. Her conversation was so circular that it made Aiymi physically dizzy. I hate to think about the consequences of Aiymi trying to get lunch.Meh my mom tends to be a tad that way too and typically I don't have much patience with that. Just tell me what you want straight to the face.
Is there anyone at home taking care of Aiymi, even if it's Zelda?
Ok glad to hear Aiymi isn't alone so if she needs any help it'll be at hand.
In unrelated news, I should start chronicling my Dwarf Fortress playthrough somewhere.
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Lying to people that know the difference, not a great idea.Too many customers don't know the difference anyway.
Also, the ideas of sharpness/spiciness vary wildly between people...
On one of the sessions of Fading Suns, with party strongly dominated by al-Malik members (four out of six or seven?), one of the players decided to show off his cooking skills (we were playing at his place) and prepared some sort of Arab/Middle-Eastern dish. The sauce was served separately in a bowl with a warning "SPICY!".
The group heeded the warning putting a small amounts of the sauce, depending upon their personal preferences. Except for one player who poured a lot of the sauce over her meat... And couldn't eat it after the few initial bites. When asked why she put so much spicy sauce over the dish, she exclaimed that when at her home warn "SPICY" it isn't really that spicy...
Lets say there was some laughter involved.
Yeah in my cheese dictionary there's only strong smelling cheese(that I can't take) and edible cheeses. It's not particularly profound.
I've learnt to dip the chopsticks into the sauce to test for spiciness before use.
Tricky stuff is the Jalapeno peppers which give slow burn, so you don't realize how hot it is until after a while, by the time you've slathered the sauce over everything >.<
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I might be able to get you monitor lizards, salt water crocodiles and mudskippers at Sungei buloh nature reserve. Otherwise it’s squirrels, crows, mynahs, sparrows, pigeons. Monkeys can be found at nature reserves too. The deer and wild boar here are very shy and don’t pop out. Snakes too.
Though at the National Transport Workers' Union canteen a whole herd was spotted. I’m guessing someone(probably the store owners there), have been feeding their food waste to the wild boars. You know, pigs.
NH – Aren’t rattlesnakes poisonous? And I rather see bears ONLY at a distance. Bears are bad news.
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Local wildlife that quickly comes to my mind: deers, foxes, occasional ferret, some small birds of prey, squirrels, and hedgehogs. Pigeons, crows, magpies, and similar birds are taken for granted.
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I think he was talking about the age of the deer in question. More points on rack =older deer.Exactly. Also, the buck in question is a bit on the small side.
Freehold, back me up here.
Two points. On a rack. Wink wink, nudge nudge.
...Oh never mind, how 'bout those [insert sportsing players here]!
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Two months ago...
WW: "...and there's just too many variables, I'm still not sure what size truck we need, or if we should get pods, or a combination of pods and a truck, or..."
Me: "Just get price quotes on a 26' truck."
Today:
WW: "...so we need to be out of our storage unit by the 31st or they charge us an extra month, so we need to get the Uhaul pods dropped off there before we go to Oregon to get Hermione next week, but I'm trying to figure out how many we need, and then how that affects what size truck we need for the stuff at the house, and..."
Me: "Why can't you just get a quote on a longer rental with a 26' truck? Like, from the 30th to the 9th or 10th? That way we take it to storage, load up there, drive it to our place, load everything else, and it's good to go, and we don't have to fart around with pods at all?"
WW: "I don't think you can do that; a week is pretty much standard."
(after EXACTLY ten minutes of research tonight)
Me: "So, these two companies both give you prompts right on the third step of the quote process for how to add extra days for a negligible additional charge; are you sure the orange truck folks you've been dealing with up until now won't let you do that, too? Here are the quotes from the other two companies for easy reference..."
One is reminded of the late, great Bill Hicks:
"...I can prove it for you on an Etch-o-Sketch..."
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I have no use for mild cheese, and I commend you Nobodyshome for giving up on mislabeled cheese.
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Two months ago...
WW: "...and there's just too many variables, I'm still not sure what size truck we need, or if we should get pods, or a combination of pods and a truck, or..."
Me: "Just get price quotes on a 26' truck."Today:
WW: "...so we need to be out of our storage unit by the 31st or they charge us an extra month, so we need to get the Uhaul pods dropped off there before we go to Oregon to get Hermione next week, but I'm trying to figure out how many we need, and then how that affects what size truck we need for the stuff at the house, and..."
Me: "Why can't you just get a quote on a longer rental with a 26' truck? Like, from the 30th to the 9th or 10th? That way we take it to storage, load up there, drive it to our place, load everything else, and it's good to go, and we don't have to fart around with pods at all?"
WW: "I don't think you can do that; a week is pretty much standard."(after EXACTLY ten minutes of research tonight)
Me: "So, these two companies both give you prompts right on the third step of the quote process for how to add extra days for a negligible additional charge; are you sure the orange truck folks you've been dealing with up until now won't let you do that, too? Here are the quotes from the other two companies for easy reference..."One is reminded of the late, great Bill Hicks:
"...I can prove it for you on an Etch-o-Sketch..."
Sometimes you really can't trust guys to get things right. I had a similar complaint about my BF when it came to house selection. He wanted me to pop to his house and decide if the location were worth balloting as opposed to my idea of checking first, then go to his house and apply directly.
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I have no use for mild cheese, and I commend you Nobodyshome for giving up on mislabeled cheese.
Remind me not to eat your cheese. I only eat MILD CHEESE! Anything too strong turns me off.
Maybe I should apply that to pathfinder, but again it's players freedoms I'm infringing on.
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Sometimes you really can't trust guys to get things right. I had a similar complain about my BF when it came to house selection. He wanted me to pop to his house and decide if the location were worth balloting as opposed to my idea of checking first, then go to his house and apply directly.Two months ago...
WW: "...and there's just too many variables, I'm still not sure what size truck we need, or if we should get pods, or a combination of pods and a truck, or..."
Me: "Just get price quotes on a 26' truck."Today:
WW: "...so we need to be out of our storage unit by the 31st or they charge us an extra month, so we need to get the Uhaul pods dropped off there before we go to Oregon to get Hermione next week, but I'm trying to figure out how many we need, and then how that affects what size truck we need for the stuff at the house, and..."
Me: "Why can't you just get a quote on a longer rental with a 26' truck? Like, from the 30th to the 9th or 10th? That way we take it to storage, load up there, drive it to our place, load everything else, and it's good to go, and we don't have to fart around with pods at all?"
WW: "I don't think you can do that; a week is pretty much standard."(after EXACTLY ten minutes of research tonight)
Me: "So, these two companies both give you prompts right on the third step of the quote process for how to add extra days for a negligible additional charge; are you sure the orange truck folks you've been dealing with up until now won't let you do that, too? Here are the quotes from the other two companies for easy reference..."One is reminded of the late, great Bill Hicks:
"...I can prove it for you on an Etch-o-Sketch..."
Right! I remember you talking about that.
It's not that they can't get it right, it's just that they have to make everything so damned complicated because they don't trust simple answers.Like the xkcd.com strip from the other day.
And it's not that women are any better at the start; I think we're just better at resigning ourselves to the inescapable conclusion that the universe is fundamentally chaotic and unknowable, and it's better to accept the kind lie of simplicity than to howl at the darkness and drink yourself to death under a bridge.
Edit: This is why we have Pro Football.
Here; have a cookie.
Postscript edit:
You gentlemen know I adore you all. But y'all do know how to complicate s***.
Except for Nobody's Home, who couldn't do unnecessarily complicated if he tried. And he has tried. But I have a feeling he wasn't taking it seriously.
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I also found out that a cranberry bun and coffee wasn't really enough breakfast for a body combat session. Was feeling hungry in the middle and had to break into my 2 peach supply and an instant cupcake at my desk to fix it mid morning.
Should've eaten a slice of that pizza I baked on Sunday for breakfast instead.
I also found out that a cranberry bun and coffee wasn't really enough breakfast for a body combat session. Was feeling hungry in the middle and had to break into my 2 peach supply and an instant cupcake at my desk to fix it mid morning.
Should've eaten a slice of that pizza I baked on Sunday for breakfast instead.
I discovered this weekend that I had already packed away my muffin tins in a crate, so I made a cranberry pistachio coffee cake. Folks who save cranberries for the winter months only are really missing out.
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I discovered this weekend that I had already packed away my muffin tins in a crate, so I made a cranberry pistachio coffee cake. Folks who save cranberries for the winter months only are really missing out.I also found out that a cranberry bun and coffee wasn't really enough breakfast for a body combat session. Was feeling hungry in the middle and had to break into my 2 peach supply and an instant cupcake at my desk to fix it mid morning.
Should've eaten a slice of that pizza I baked on Sunday for breakfast instead.
In my case cranberries don't stay around long enough to get into a cake. *mumbles with mouth full of cranberries*
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We had a pretty strong thunderstorm blow through here on Saturday morning. I didn't think it was worth mentioning because all that happened to me was a few smallish branches in the yard and I lost power for about 2 hours. Then this morning I noticed that the house for sale across the street from me had a group of people in orange vests working around it, and heard the sound of chainsaws. Intrigued, I wandered over to where I could see without being in the way and saw that a tree had come down, taken some of the shingles off the back of the roof, and caved in the detached two-car garage. Thankfully no one is living there right now, but that has got to be a pain in the ass for the sellers.
Good thing no one got hurt.
In my case cranberries don't stay around long enough to get into a cake. *mumbles with mouth full of cranberries*I discovered this weekend that I had already packed away my muffin tins in a crate, so I made a cranberry pistachio coffee cake. Folks who save cranberries for the winter months only are really missing out.I also found out that a cranberry bun and coffee wasn't really enough breakfast for a body combat session. Was feeling hungry in the middle and had to break into my 2 peach supply and an instant cupcake at my desk to fix it mid morning.
Should've eaten a slice of that pizza I baked on Sunday for breakfast instead.
This is why I buy lots of bags during the winter and put them in the freezer, so I have fresh-frozen cranberries when I want to bake with them.
They will still be here. Unless lisamarlene gets here first and eats them.Once you get right down to it I sort of eat almost anything ><
And Gran, you're 15,000 km away.
Not unless you actually have a lasagna layered on top of another lasagna. If you don't, you're just a tease.
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You see, what we have here are dried cranberries, which granted, are a little tart. But still a decent enough snack when you're watching animal planet.
If the fresh versions are more sour then the dried version, then I'll probably leave them alone.
Actually a Mort repellent for foods could come in spicy, sour or bitter sprays. Spray ontop of the food to keep the greedy cat away!
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I mean my aunt lost 6 lychees and 5 mangosteens when I popped by her place yesterday to deliver papadams and pizza.
You see, what we have here are dried cranberries, which granted, are a little tart. But still a decent enough snack when you're watching animal planet.
If the fresh versions are more sour then the dried version, then I'll probably leave them alone.
Actually a Mort repellent for foods could come in spicy, sour or bitter sprays. Spray ontop of the food to keep the greedy cat away!
Ha.
Ha. Hahaha.No one eats a more than a few fresh cranberries on their own.
And I'm a monster of devouring sour snacks.
We bake 'em. Fresh cranberries clash very delightfully with sweet muffin batter, pancake batter, or all kinds of sweet breads.
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Rattlesnakes are very poisonous. Roughly five people die each year from snake bites. How well a person recovers depends on how swiftly antivenin is administered.
Er... deer kill WAY more people than rattlesnakes. 120 per year.
Rattlesnakes try not to poison you, so more often than not their bites aren't bad at all. The rest of the quote is, "Each year, about 8,000 venomous snake bites occur in the US and about 5 of those people die."So it's a matter of saying, "Well, carp," and getting straight to a place where an ambulance can reach you. Since all the hospitals around here carry antivenom, you'd have to work pretty hard to be one of those 5.
And bears? Black bears are harmless as long as you respect and understand them. "I am a giant coward who will kill you if you make me think that me or my children cannot run away," is a good description of the California black bear. So just always give 'em an out, and they're fine.